Vladimir Drinfeld

Vladimir Drinfeld is a mathematics prodigy from Soviet Union. Vladimir Drinfeld won a perfect score at the 1969 International Mathematical Olympiad, representing Soviet Union. On the final day of that Olympiad Vladimir was 15 years, 156 days old, placing the result among the youngest medal performances in the competition's recorded history. Vladimir was 15 years, 156 days when it happened.

Mathematical precocity is the most studied form of giftedness, tracked for half a century by programmes such as the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth. Its value as a predictor is real but imperfect: many early standouts leave the field, and many major mathematicians were never identified as children.

What separates a documented record from a family anecdote is that someone else wrote it down at the time. Vladimir's is recorded in published reference sources, with a date and a figure attached, and that is the standard applied to every entry in this index. Where an age or a date is disputed in the sources, this page follows the published record and says so rather than choosing the more impressive number.

Records like this one rarely survive untouched. The age thresholds that define early achievement keep falling as training methods, coaching and access to competition spread to more countries, and each generation of mathematics prodigys reaches the standard a little sooner than the last. Whether Vladimir's mark has since been beaten is noted above; the achievement itself is fixed to its date and stands on the record as it was set.